Mmm, I could agree with that somewhat, but understand too that Chinese companies do not work the same as companies in the rest of the world. In the US a person working in a department gets credit for their work, in china, the entire department gets rewarded for overall good working order and output. If they hit a level of normality, then they get paid at a certain rate. It has to do with output because of demand from other countries. Its what happens when you turn a country into a living factory.
You can see the effect of this with the Oneplus 10 and Oneplus 9. The 9 was the phone that oneplus worked on without Carl Pei there for the most of its development. He got the look down, made some notes, was around for a bit, then at some point split off and BBK put people in his place. In the West we put a lot of love into design, and we give credit to those who have ideas. In china, you are trying to make everyone’s life better overall because its just not that great, so everyone tries hard. When reviewers were confused by the infrared camera, unsure how that helped with their selfies and dick pics, Oneplus was probably really pissed off. They had made the ultimate IT and Repairmans pocket tool, and everyone was scared you’d see grandma’s tits or young timmy’s bum.
So, instead of appealing to those people like western companies do, Oneplus gave them the product that was demanded of them, and showed what requesting that sort of shit actuially gets you, VS what they had designed and how iut had been set up. Software coulda been done differently, but being a chinese company everyones gunna freak out about face recognition. But, then everyone bitches about the sensor placement. Well, if you work in a mine, live in a cold region, or work in a rice feild, you don’t wanna be touching shit. Its just good sense.
While the games sector of Epic can be kinda… well, eh, theres a lot more under that name than JUST a games publisher. And they want to branch out.
I’m not saying trust them, but I am saying give them time.
Personally I am going to go buy all of AFK’s albums on bandcamp because out of all of the places I can buy their music, bandcamp STILL outputs the most money to the artist, even after the conglomeration.